You can surrender without a prayer, but never really pray, pray without surrender
You can fight, fight without ever winning, but never ever win, win without a fight
-Lee, Lifeson and Peart

Friday, December 03, 2004

The KFC Incident

In the drive thru at my local KFC this event occurred, and is represented here as best as I can recall:

SpeakerBox: Welcome to KFC/Taco Bell can I take your order.

Me: Yes, I'll have the stuffed burrito and a dr. pepper....

Crazy Man From Car in Front of Me Now Standing In Front of My Car: What did you do to my bumper?

Me: Excuse me?

CMFCIFOMNSIFOMC: My bumper, look what you did to it!

Me: Dude, I am just ordering my food, what are you talking about?

Crazy: Do you have insurance, I hope you do for hitting my car.

Me: I didn't hit your car.

Crazy: You didn't hit my car and scuff my bumper?

Me (still in car looking at his bumper): Dude that is a black scuff, and I am driving a red car, I didn't hit your car.

Crazy: Look at my fucking bumper man. This is a fucking Cadillac!!!

Me: Hey, hold on, easy there. (In hind site at this point this man has me rattled, I drop the f-bomb in confession at church and if you ask my wife I am not the most sane person when it comes to confrontation, usually I would have been out of the car and in this guy's face, whether it was smart or not and usually I act on the side of stupidity, so this guy must have been freaking me out.) I didn't hit your car.

Crazy: Give me your information or I am calling the cops.

Me: Go ahead and call the police.

Crazy: You telling me you didn't hit my car?

Me: I didn't hit your car, now call the police.

At this point he jumps in his car and moves forward as the Drive thru line has advanced, he leaves his door open and lays rubber and moves 2 feet.

Crazy Man Now Back Out of his Car And Next To Mine: You knocked me forward 4 inches when you hit me.

Me: Dude, even if I accidentally bumped you in the drive thru I think I would have felt knocking you forward 4 inches, I didn't hit your car, I am just ordering lunch now please back off.

Crazy: Give me your information or I am calling the cops (He now has his cell phone out and pen and paper ready).

Crazy then jumps into his car and drives up to the window and gets his meal and drives off. I get my lunch, the window lady gives me a WTF look and I drive off. The Crazy is now standing in the path of my car to get to the main street, and approaches the passenger window. I cracked the window.

Me: Dude I want nothing from you, you want to make a claim, fine try to make a claim just get the fuck out of my way.

And with that I drive off.

When I get to work I call my insurance company and ask them what this guy can do now that I stupidly gave him my policy number. They put an alert on my account and will call if anything occurs. Then I called the local police department, on my agents suggestion, to get their advice. After I told them the story, they suggested calling my police department if I felt this guy might come to my house to beef up patrols in my neighborhood. They also said they record and keep these phone calls for 10 years, and if anything occurred that my version of the events were now on record with the Indianapolis Police Department and they could provide a tape of it given the date and time of call, which she noted for me. I then called the KFC Manager and asked if they had a Camera out back to record the Drive thru, she said it only recorded the window but she saw what had happened and said she stuck her head out the window when called by her workers and was yelling at the guy to get in his car and move along (this is when he 'burned rubber') and was ready to call the cops but he left. I thanked her and hung up.

After telling this story to co-workers I responded as follows:

1. While I never saw a weapon, the guy just freaked me out, and no I never got out of the car cause that would have been ugly (remember my not so smart confrontation choices)

2. I didn't drive away cause if he did call the cops, I would have been the one fleeing even thought I did nothing. Plus the drive thru is one of those you can't leave until near the window.

3. I didn't have my cell phone or I would have called the cops, he never did.

4. I gave him my info to get him to back off, which he started to do then continued to come at me after he got it.

2 Comments:

I hear stuff like this all the time. You're lucky he didn't get physical with you. You did everything right, too. I'm sure he was trying to scam you. He probably back into something and decided to let someone else pay for it.